I have a Internal Audio Hardware card and my Laptop (Lenevo IdeaPad) presents a single slot as a combo Microphone and headphone jack.

On Windows, I attach my ipod headphone to jack and speak directly to my computer. I assume there is a microphone which is listening to my voice and I can communicate two-way. On Ubuntu, the microphone always seem to be listening to random noise. So any input by speaking to the computer is not possible. What could be the reason and how do I troubleshoot this?

3 Answers
3

I have a similar laptop and had a similar problem. I spent on total over 10 hours from basic troubleshooting, asking stuff on forums, googling, changing alsa packages to beta versions -- basicly everything I could imagine to try.

I (and some helpers) arrived to the conclusion that the hardware just is not supported. What was essentially the problem was that the built in laptop mic would stay active, and the headset mic would not activate at all. Dual booting to windows showed that there was no hardware problem since it worked perfectly in Win 7.

I ended up buying a cheap USB headset and it's working perfectly. IF however you succeed to get it work, please answer to your own question here so I can see if the same solution would work. Good luck!